Story Highlights

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — You know it's happened. You open up an app on your smartphone or tablet only to find that two or three hours have just flown by.

What app are you addicted to? We stopped in at the Manhattan Beach Pier on a sunny summer day to ask a random group of beachgoers:

• Candy Crush Saga: (Free; Apple, Android, Facebook) The hit Facebook game Candy Crush is a sugary addiction on your iPhone or Android. The puzzle game has you swap colored candies on a board to make a match of three in a row. The game gives players "only a certain amount of lives, and after you run out, you have to wait for 30 minutes," says Lizet Torres of Los Angeles. "When I wait, it feels like the longest time of my life. I'm checking my phone every five minutes to see if it's time to play again."

• Untappd: (Free; Apple, Android, Windows, BlackBerry) The social app tracks beers you and others discover and like. "You keep a log of the beers you've had and where you've had them and see what other people have posted about the same beer," says Piuola Khodadadi of Los Angeles. "If I drink a certain kind of beer, I can go on and see the comments and what people think of it."

• TuneIn Radio: (Free; Apple, Android, Windows, BlackBerry) The guide to more than 70,000 radio stations connects you to your favorite local station, from wherever you are. "In Chicago, you have to be clued into the weather," says Lori Harris of the Windy City, on vacation in L.A. "Because it can change from 70 degrees to 40 degrees." Listening to radio via the app is easier than calling up the station website, she adds, "because you put in keywords and it will go straight from there."

• Bubble games: Dani Dobrusin of Los Angeles can't stop playing Bubble Breaker (free; Apple, Android) a game where you break up groups of bubbles. "It's just an addictive game," she says. Angela Jones of England, however, can't stop playing Bubble Mania (free; Apple, Android) where the object is to defeat the "Evil Bubble Wizard" and break his bubbles. "It's a bit silly," she says.